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Monday, 17 December 2012

'Still' means distillate. But it could also refer to a snapshot or still life. Or a memory.

For this project, I have been making disillates of memories from my grandfather's garden.

Taste and smell are an important catalyst for invoking memories. Making liquors of my grandfather's garden seemed an appropriate and accurate way to capture and display the particular garden. My grandfather himself also made stills of his garden. He would make embroideries, some more than 3 meters high. Both embroidery as making liquor takes time and requires patience.

The end result is four sweet liquors, based on four stories about the garden: a plum (Mirabelles '76), a rose liquor (Picking the Roses), an oak/hazel liquor (Under Leeuwke's Oak) and a Sunflower/lavender liquor (5 Sunflowers). The liquors are safely made with the advice of a chemistry professor and a professional liquor maker I met along the way.

Time can be interpretated and understood in two different ways.
As my example is Zuidas, this area is based on 'precious minutes' as the passengers almost all have in common; they have an important place to get to, and this important place is not particularly the Zuidas but their jobs or the train/bus they have to catch. My proposal for this area is a different type of time, the precious time of the lovely day we are actually living in but many people tend to forget. My installation is supposed to trigger people to see and understand this time and moment I'm proposing. We all like to stop and have a look at the clouds or catch a little bit of sun, my work is highlighting this short moment of relaxation.

The title is a little tribute to the great book Catcher in the Rye in which I also sense the twist of the young man's thinking about the world and at the same time the form is quite similar to a cage --> caught, trapped

This project deals with the fact that people perceive themselves as individuals in control of their own will but in fact they can be influenced in their decisions without them being aware.

Through a performing act of showing still slides, I induce a state in which the spectators become accustomed to a certain thought and thus sense that I may try to send them a message. I will then proceed in an action that will evoke the opposite reaction of what people were expecting to experience.

I see myself as someone who laughs a lot and that why I have chosen this subject.

In my research I have learned that laughter is one of the first communication skills mankind have developed, you can find laughter in every stage of the development since the beginning of man until this day, the Neanderthals for example have used laughter as a reflex for communicating with their fellow Neanderthals since they did not had a known language, it has bought a lighter feeling and trust between them.

Laughter is one of the basics skills we lean as babies like crying we express if we like or don’t like things by laughing or crying. Babies start to laugh at the age of 8 months.

I have chosen after my research to show how people are not able to control their laughter. By simply hearing laughter (not seeing) the limbic system (which is in the brain) will send singles to the body and we will react to it.

In my installation I want to create a space in the park where people will go to a tree and make it laugh, by just switching it on.

By doing that they will hear the laughter and will react on it, with the conscious idea that they are in the park it will stimulate the feeling of bizarreness and happiness.

Every day we are confronted with a constant flow of information. Sometimes literal information - such as signs - sometimes more natural or instinctive information - snow "tells us" to wear warm clothes. Both examples of information we are – in different ways –able to understand. But how do we react to information, which is hidden or unequivocal?

Installation:

In the middle of the Museumplein in Amsterdam, on the grass, stands a small glasshouse. The house is transparent and at first glance it appears empty.

After a few days small structures start to appear inside the glasshouse. Different structures in various colours - blue, white and green – occur, as small spots in the house. Even though it is a slow process – the eye cannot perceive it – it seems like it is growing. As days go by the small structure turns bigger, more complex, and starts to create connections. It is hard to see what it actually is, that what is growing, but the connection is obviously being established, turning into a pattern. As the pattern grows, it becomes huge, powerful, and as an effect it transform the simple lighthouse into a greenhouse - both as an appearance, and as an actual happening: a growing organism: MOLD.

With the mold-project I aim to evoke an ambiguous feeling. On the one hand mold is something - when it appears in our houses - we want to get rid of, but in this situation it is actually appreciated as aesthetic and fascinating.

Leaves are a representation of time. As soon as you see a tree, you will know what season it is. With the change of color from green to shades of red, yellow and brown, it is autumn which makes us especially aware of the season. Those typical autumn colors are actually a transit color between green on its way to becoming brown. As such, you can also regard the autumn colors as an interface of time.

A collection of autumn leaves which have been dried in a press are being assembled with a sewing machine into one large sheet. The position of the leaves is defined by their color. By exposing the sheet to light, the expressive effect changes the vivid colors to brown. The sheet will thus be a "living painting", exposing the passing of time.

My project deals with the issue of ‘Overweight children’. We as adults in society are really serious about this subject. But how do children deal with it?

Children are focused on the short term and have less attention for things that might happen on the long term. Even when they understand where overweight comes from, what it does and how you can solve it, they are not really interested, because children only think of the fun and happiness at the moment. That is why the word overweight is too serious for them. With this installation I aim to give overweight another meaning by showing children what kind of things you can do and achieve with your own energy.

The balance in the gym prints out information about our weight, muscles and the changes of our body. Just like the gym's balance, the energy printing machine gives an output of the activity, in this case an elastics game. While making the figures, the energy printing machine registers the power of you pulling the elastics wires. Also mistakes will be registered. The result offers you information regarding the length and the sorts of movements. With this tool children are able to control their energy and movements in a playful way.

It was at the age of15 when for the first time I became conscious of myself as an integrated wholeness in which body and mind are connected.

I experienced this whilst doing sports, when we had to measure our heart beat. As I kept on getting odd numbers I was taken to the nurse, from here I was sent to the cardiologist where I was diagnosed with Arrhythmia. Never before had I experienced this awareness of my heart banging against my chest. From that moment I developed the ability to calm down my heartbeat through breathing.

During the visit at the doctor’s I was nervous, uncomfortable, but it helped that my mother came along with me. From the moment I started to hear this strange but involving sound of my own heartbeat, whilst at the doctors on the ECG, which is a means to interpret the electrical activity of the heart over a period of time, my mood changed and I felt the atmosphere changing as well. From being nervous and uncomfortable I felt more at ease, as for the first time I could hear and see my heartbeat. I could see the direct connection between body and mind.

My heartbeat changed my immediate environment. The sound of my heartbeat sounded like bubbles, which made me laugh. The atmosphere of the room thus changed from almost utter awkward silence into a room filled with laughter. My heartbeat thus changed the mood in the room and through this experience I came up with the idea of translating my heartbeat into space. With this installation, the rhythm of every individual can create and change the atmosphere of a certain space.

Do we know what happens next to us? Do we know how many
trees are around our office or school? Do we know how manyclouds are in
the sky or how they are moving above us?

Our head is full of
tasks and resposabilities. Our speed is fast. Our phones are never off
and our contacts are all over the world. Many days are too big, too
bright and too fast. We have lost the view for the normal daily bloom
that we can find in our direct surrounding, directly next to us.

I
want to bring this view back and I want to open people's eyes towards
natural beauty of daily and simple objects. After a short break people
will walk with different eyes through the world. Normal surrounding
becomes special and fascinating again. Bring back a closer view with an
Installation for a short lOOk!

Change your position, change your
perspective. You will see but you don´t hear what you expect. A moving
picture just from what is around you all the time, underlined by sound. A
few minutes to relax and recreate. A few minutes out of our daily,
mostly hectically life.

Saturday, 15 December 2012

In the early evening of a foggy day, the bus I was on was running on the highway between two cities. The horizon was dark; the things I was used to seeing every day had all disappeared, only the windows of highrises were light, like geometrical figures suspended in the quiet night air. Without a frame of reference, their distance and size had become indistinct. The geometrical figures of light were communicating some information in space, but the space they were in suggested several possibilities.

I would like to translate a spatial assemblage into information in another space, and, through its oscillation between states of immobility and movement, create two spaces visually transforming into each other.

Thursday, 13 December 2012

We were the last generation of Lithuanians born in Soviet Union. Our childhood was different. We’ve played with nature, salt-shakers and peas. Our icons were ‘frozen in time’ from watching cartoons made in 60’s, 70’s. It took few years after Iron Wall collapsed when we were exposed to new culture, different attitude and media. It was something new. The calm and innocent characters that we knew have been slowly replaced by upbeat speedy western mainstream cartoons. We were introduced to Disney like the rest of the world. Cat Leopold used to end every episode by saying “Kids, let’s live friendly”. He wasn’t so exiting after Ninja Turtles and Ghost busters were introduced. Era of Kinder Surprises and Barbie has arrived.

With my installation I wanted to translate a contrast of two different life models that my generation of Lithuanians had an opportunity to experience. Which makes ‘us’ different from those who were born just few years latter.

One of our favorite childhood games was called ‘Secret’. The purpose of a game is to make a composition of something that is important to you (by that time it was candy wrapper, nice flower or leaf), cover it with glass, bury in the ground and mark with a stone or a branch. Then after few days you try to find your or your friends ‘secret’. The game disappeared with new wave of western culture and became a symbol and ‘body’ of my installation while content gives a glance of our childhood.

Dear class,
As agreed in class, I will make an on-line compilation of this class' results.
Please upload text & image on this blog here, under "Presentation 2012"
Since you are all editors, you can all change the content of your posts.

Text (max 250words, by Wednesday 13 December)
TITLE
...
WHAT
In your work, what information is being conveyed?
or: What sort of IMPLICIT subject/phenemenon have you made EXPLICIT?

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Edwin van der Heide is an artist and researcher in the field of sound, space and interaction. He extends the terms composition and musical language into spatial, interactive and interdisciplinary directions. His work comprises installations, performances and environments. The audience is placed in the middle of the work and challenged to actively explore, interact and relate themselves to the artwork.

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

This is an installation at the Kortrijk biennale, where I was in the vacation for the workshop. It is made by the artist David Bowen and in this installation he shows how the water moves and change constantly and how it feels if your're under the water, which explains the title of the installation; 'Underwater'.

He doenst made-up the movements. The installation translate what the sensors in the water intercept.
Maybe there are more examples at his website: http://www.dwbowen.com/index.html

Hello everybody, I still own you some examples of infospace. Last thursday we had some real good and clear examples, but all made by artists. And I was wondering, do we make infospaces ourselfs without being aware of it? And I came to this example:

It gives us the information of how many people reached this summit, and from which country they are. And indeed it is a collection of loose flags, but together they are one subject.

My next example is from the artist Job Koelewijn. It is a sentence, but on the water made by sort of little fountains on the bodem of the 'river'. I had a doubt about this one, because somewhere it is information in 3D, but on the other side it are still words. What do you think?

In class I told you about a schoolproject. Three times a day I collected my shades in one particular round. The information these three rounds give me, I translateded it into a 3d object. But then on small scale. The information was how the sun turns and how that influence my shades. (Actually the photo's are too bad, that it isn't worth to put them on the blog)

Then at last, I would like you to see a documentary about Anish Kapoor. He explain his mirror works and why the color red is so important to him. I think his mirrorworks relates to our subject, because his aim is to informate people about that real life isn't what it looks like. His mirrors show us more than we see.

By the way, this program : 'Close-up' is very interesting. Every tuesdaynight (22.30u? at avro, NED2) an other subject : architecture, film, schilderkunst, beeldhouwkunst, photografie, design, and fashion.

Monday, 24 September 2012

I also wanted to show this installation by artist Q. Serafijn and architect Lars Spuybroek, and it is a 'mood' tower that 'maps' the emotions of the inhabitants of the city of Doetinchem. Every citizen of the town of Doetinchem can decide which colour approaches the mood of that day the best. The tower will show the mood of the city, the people can fill out a questionnaire where subjects like love, hate, happiness and fear are tackled. These emotions are then translated into a colour at the end of the day.